5,845 research outputs found
Determination of mass of IGR J17091-3624 from "Spectro-Temporal" variations during onset-phase of the 2011 outburst
The 2011 outburst of the black hole candidate IGR J17091-3624 followed the
canonical track of state transitions along with the evolution of Quasi-Periodic
Oscillation (QPO) frequencies before it began exhibiting various variability
classes similar to GRS 1915+105. We use this canonical evolution of spectral
and temporal properties to determine the mass of IGR J17091-3624, using three
different methods, viz : Photon Index () - QPO frequency ()
correlation, QPO frequency () - Time (day) evolution and broadband
spectral modelling based on Two Component Advective Flow. We provide a combined
mass estimate for the source using a Naive Bayes based joint likelihood
approach. This gives a probable mass range of 11.8 M - 13.7
M. Considering each individual estimate and taking the lowermost and
uppermost bounds among all three methods, we get a mass range of 8.7
M - 15.6 M with 90% confidence. We discuss the probable
implications of our findings in the context of two component accretion flow.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures (4 in colour), 2 tables. Accepted for publication
in Ap
Measuring Spillovers from Alternative Forms of Foreign Investment
Much of the endogenous growth literature has dwelled on evaluating the spillover effects of trade on growth, but much less efforts have been directed towards tracing and quantifying the spillover effects of foreign investments. This paper, in incorporating the effects of various types of foreign investments, namely foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign portfolio investment (FPI) and other foreign investment (OFI) fills this gap in the literature. Adopting the stochastic frontier approach, this paper constructs an OECD frontier based on a panel dataset of 20 OECD countries over the 1981-2000 period. Spillover effects of FDI, FPI, OFI and trade are gauged by their respective contributions towards reducing technical inefficiencies, which are represented by the distance of each country from the constructed frontier. Results from the multiple models examined in the paper indicate that inflows of foreign investment and trade have been instrumental in reducing inefficiencies across OECD countries, whereas outflows of foreign investment exacerbate inefficiencies. The study also confirms some previous findings that the spillover effects of FDI inflows are larger than that of trade but does not find evidence in favour of the view that the spillover effects of trade are overestimated when FDI flows are excluded from the analysis. Moreover, the impact of FDI inflows is larger than those of FPI and OFI inflows. The importance of absorptive capacities of host economies in capturing spillover gains from FDI inflows is also examined. Amongst the various measures of absorptive capacity considered, only human capital was found to be importantforeign direct, portfolio and other investment; spillovers; stochastic production frontier; OECD;
CO2 lidar system for atmospheric studies
A lidar facility using a TEA CO2 laser source is being developed at the ENEA Laboratories for Atmospheric Studies. The different subsystems and the proposed experimental activities are described
A post-Newtonian diagnosis of quasiequilibrium configurations of neutron star-neutron star and neutron star-black hole binaries
We use a post-Newtonian diagnostic tool to examine numerically generated
quasiequilibrium initial data sets for non-spinning double neutron star and
neutron star-black hole binary systems. The PN equations include the effects of
tidal interactions, parametrized by the compactness of the neutron stars and by
suitable values of ``apsidal'' constants, which measure the degree of
distortion of stars subjected to tidal forces. We find that the post-Newtonian
diagnostic agrees well with the double neutron star initial data, typically to
better than half a percent except where tidal distortions are becoming extreme.
We show that the differences could be interpreted as representing small
residual eccentricity in the initial orbits. In comparing the diagnostic with
preliminary numerical data on neutron star-black hole binaries, we find less
agreement.Comment: 17 pages, 6 tables, 8 figure
A stochastic-Lagrangian particle system for the Navier-Stokes equations
This paper is based on a formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations developed
by P. Constantin and the first author (\texttt{arxiv:math.PR/0511067}, to
appear), where the velocity field of a viscous incompressible fluid is written
as the expected value of a stochastic process. In this paper, we take
copies of the above process (each based on independent Wiener processes), and
replace the expected value with times the sum over these
copies. (We remark that our formulation requires one to keep track of
stochastic flows of diffeomorphisms, and not just the motion of particles.)
We prove that in two dimensions, this system of interacting diffeomorphisms
has (time) global solutions with initial data in the space
\holderspace{1}{\alpha} which consists of differentiable functions whose
first derivative is H\"older continuous (see Section \ref{sGexist} for
the precise definition). Further, we show that as the system
converges to the solution of Navier-Stokes equations on any finite interval
. However for fixed , we prove that this system retains roughly
times its original energy as . Hence the limit
and do not commute. For general flows, we only
provide a lower bound to this effect. In the special case of shear flows, we
compute the behaviour as explicitly.Comment: v3: Typo fixes, and a few stylistic changes. 17 pages, 2 figure
Magnetic behavior of nanocrystalline ErCo2
We have investigated the magnetic behavior of the nanocrystalline form of a
well-known Laves phase compound, ErCo2 - the bulk form of which has been known
to undergo an interesting first-order ferrimagnetic ordering near 32 K -
synthesized by high-energy ball-milling. It is found that, in these
nanocrystallites, Co exhibits ferromagnetic order at room temperature as
inferred from the magnetization data. However, the magnetic transition
temperature for Er sublattice remains essentially unaffected as though the
(Er)4f-Co(3d) coupling is weak on Er magnetism. The net magnetic moment as
measured at high fields, sat at 120 kOe, is significantly reduced with respect
to that for the bulk in the ferrimagnetically ordered state and possible
reasons are outlined. We have also compared the magnetocaloric behavior for the
bulk and the nano particles.Comment: JPCM, in pres
The Dirac Equation Is Separable On The Dyon Black Hole Metric
Using the tetrad formalism, we carry out the separation of variables for the
massive complex Dirac equation in the gravitational and electromagnetic field
of a four-parameter (mass, angular momentum, electric and magnetic charges)
black hole.Comment: 13 page
Detecting the limits of regulatory element conservation and divergence estimation using pairwise and multiple alignments
BACKGROUND: Molecular evolutionary studies of noncoding sequences rely on multiple alignments. Yet how multiple alignment accuracy varies across sequence types, tree topologies, divergences and tools, and further how this variation impacts specific inferences, remains unclear. RESULTS: Here we develop a molecular evolution simulation platform, CisEvolver, with models of background noncoding and transcription factor binding site evolution, and use simulated alignments to systematically examine multiple alignment accuracy and its impact on two key molecular evolutionary inferences: transcription factor binding site conservation and divergence estimation. We find that the accuracy of multiple alignments is determined almost exclusively by the pairwise divergence distance of the two most diverged species and that additional species have a negligible influence on alignment accuracy. Conserved transcription factor binding sites align better than surrounding noncoding DNA yet are often found to be misaligned at relatively short divergence distances, such that studies of binding site gain and loss could easily be confounded by alignment error. Divergence estimates from multiple alignments tend to be overestimated at short divergence distances but reach a tool specific divergence at which they cease to increase, leading to underestimation at long divergences. Our most striking finding was that overall alignment accuracy, binding site alignment accuracy and divergence estimation accuracy vary greatly across branches in a tree and are most accurate for terminal branches connecting sister taxa and least accurate for internal branches connecting sub-alignments. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that variation in alignment accuracy can lead to errors in molecular evolutionary inferences that could be construed as biological variation. These findings have implications for which species to choose for analyses, what kind of errors would be expected for a given set of species and how multiple alignment tools and phylogenetic inference methods might be improved to minimize or control for alignment errors
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Palbociclib plus letrozole as first-line therapy in estrogen receptor-positive/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative advanced breast cancer with extended follow-up.
PurposeIn the initial PALOMA-2 (NCT01740427) analysis with median follow-up of 23 months, palbociclib plus letrozole significantly prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) in women with estrogen receptor-positive (ER+)/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-) advanced breast cancer (ABC) [hazard ratio (HR) 0.58; P < 0.001]. Herein, we report results overall and by subgroups with extended follow-up.MethodsIn this double-blind, phase 3 study, post-menopausal women with ER+/HER2- ABC who had not received prior systemic therapy for their advanced disease were randomized 2:1 to palbociclib-letrozole or placebo-letrozole. Endpoints include investigator-assessed PFS (primary), safety, and patient-reported outcomes (PROs).ResultsAfter a median follow-up of approximately 38 months, median PFS was 27.6 months for palbociclib-letrozole (n = 444) and 14.5 months for placebo-letrozole (n = 222) (HR 0.563; 1-sided P < 0.0001). All subgroups benefited from palbociclib treatment. The improvement of PFS with palbociclib-letrozole was maintained in the next 2 subsequent lines of therapy and delayed the use of chemotherapy (40.4 vs. 29.9 months for palbociclib-letrozole vs. placebo-letrozole). Safety data were consistent with the known profile. Patients' quality of life was maintained.ConclusionsWith approximately 15 months of additional follow-up, palbociclib plus letrozole continued to demonstrate improved PFS compared with placebo plus letrozole in the overall population and across all patient subgroups, while the safety profile remained favorable and quality of life was maintained. These data confirm that palbociclib-letrozole should be considered the standard of care for first-line therapy in patients with ER+/HER2- ABC, including those with low disease burden or long disease-free interval. Sponsored by Pfizer; ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01740427
Trapped gravitational wave modes in stars with R>3M
The possibility of trapped modes of gravitational waves appearing in stars
with R>3M is considered. It is shown that the restriction to R<3M in previous
studies of trapped modes, using uniform density models, is not essential.
Scattering potentials are computed for another family of analytic stellar
models showing the appearance of a deep potential well for one model with R>3M.
However, the provided example is unstable, although it has a more realistic
equation of state in the sense that the sound velocity is finite. On the other
hand it is also shown that for some stable models belonging to the same family
but having R<3M, the well is significantly deeper than that of the uniform
density stars. Whether there are physically realistic equations of state which
allow stable configurations with trapped modes therefore remains an open
problem.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX2
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